The tree paintings of the Matobo Hills, Zimbabwe

While the environment around us, for most of human history, has been visually dominated by trees and plants, these subjects are rare in global rock art. Instead, most rock art traditions are either composed of animals and human depictions, or geometric designs. Almost the only country in the world with a significant number of tree and plant rock art depictions is Zimbabwe, in southern Africa. Here, we examine the rock paintings of trees. We draw upon the legacy private collection of Peter Genge, a local monuments inspector based at the Natural History Museum in Bulawayo. During the 1980s and 1990s he recorded more than one thousand rock art sites from the Matobo Hills in the south-west corner of Zimbabwe. Eighty sites in this collection contain images of 150 trees. We analyse the formal characteristics of each tree painting, in its painted context. A major finding is that, unlike in other parts of Zimbabwe, the rock paintings of trees in the Matobo area are overwhelmingly depicted as bare, with no leaves, flowers, or other species-specific details. We examine this unusual picturing choice and seek to provide an explanation for it.